Christmas Day 2021

I couldn’t sleep last night and ended up on the sofa, to be awakened by the girls at 6:15. I was a shambling ruin of a man but held it together with prosecco and toast until they’d been through the first swathe of presents, then had a blessed two hour nap while my wife persuaded the girls to take a bath.
Reawakened by their shrieks and yells, I then took over, helping with their Lego construction project while my wife got a chance to sleep. And thus we made it through the day without disaster, going to friends for dinner at 4, quaffing beer and whisky, and then putting the kids, exhausted, into bed at 8.

We bought the girls two enormous soft toys, a Hello Kitty themed unicorn and a Hello Kitty themed penguin with an ice cream for a hat, and along with those, new clothes, books and science sets, they were very happy. Somehow I’d bought my wife so much chocolate (from Charbonnel et Walker all the way to a lowly Heath Bar) that she almost missed the perfume I bought too. In return I got a lovely hat, more books to read and a new shirt, and we all got chocolate oranges, a new thing to introduce the girls to.

Tonight it will probably snow. Hopefully we don’t get perishingly cold before the morning … After all, there’s still more presents to unwrap …